Day 9 Small and slow solutions

The pace of the PDC has picked up and suddenly there is very little time to reflect and write about each day. With 42 participants the dynamics are very busy indeed, so many enquiring minds, so many people connecting with these important ideas.

The world is facing huge and complex problems, yet the solutions must come from millions of small and slow solutions.

The key to permaculture seems to me to be about staring small, creating a model, an initiative that works at a manageable scale and then allowing it to grow and evolve. The ethic of re-investment of surplus gives the key to this process. Sustainability is about meeting needs whilst saving a surplus of some kind to be returned to the system. this constant reinvestment allows the system to grow, In turn something that is effective and grows tends to inspire others to copy and replicate it.

Teaching about patterns, i am fascinated by this pattern, from Nyero rocks in Uganda

Instinct may tell us that in these challenging times we need big solutions to turn things into a new direction but I remain convinced that attemtoing to create change at scale runs the huge risk of creating even migger ploblems through making big mistakes. Feeding the world, from the bottom up by creating food security, fertile soils and a strong environment creates aberock on which many further and perhaps less basic achievements can be made.